Welcome! This site quantifies some of the USA's dire energy problems, and explores the challenging transition to less depleting/damaging fuels over the next few decades. This process may well End Suburbia.

Energy Transition Simulator

In the plots that you will generate, historical energy usage patterns in the USA through 2005 are extrapolated to 2040 with ASPO's oil depletion curve controlling the decline rate of that energy source. You control the exponential growth/decline rates in our use of the other energy sources, adjusted once each decade to reflect market penetration. (This delay attempts to introduce asset inertia into the model.) Adjust the values however you want, but THINK HOW you can justify your choices. Jump down to the simulator or continue reading.

Some Assumptions

The natural gas default domestic figure is from the EIA 2005 Midterm Update (slide 12), whose Base Production category seems to lump conventional depletion of USA fields and Canadian imports together! It is kept flat until 2015 by importing up to 0.35 trillion ft³ of coalbed methane (CBM) from Canada and larger quantities from CBM and other unconventional gas sources in the USA, followed by Alaskan depletion to 2040. LNG imports will become significant by 2010.

Beyond Oil (1991) by Gever et al estimated that by 2020 without growth in consumption, USA coal would have too low an Energy Returned over Energy Invested (ERoEI) to be worth mining; to handle technical improvements since their study, I increase the peak to 2025 and drop coal extraction by 1% annually thereafter.

The default USA domestic oil curve assumes that ANWR and adjacent areas are drilled.

The nuclear entry is fission at 91% of rated capacity, perhaps some fusion approaching 2040. Plutonium production is for all grades (weapons and reactor grades) in a uranium/MOX, not thorium, based fuel cycle without breeders and is scaled from US stock of 502 tons in 2005. Nuclear reactor construction must first replace the 4% annual decline from decommisioned reactors as their 20-year license extensions start to expire in 2011.

Interpreting the results

The thumbnail output image at left shows how simulation results are reported. You will see not only the fuel mix at various times (top left), but also what the consumption implies in terms of operating power plants (right) and their waste including the running total of emitted CO₂ (middle) and its atmospheric concentration in parts per million (middle, red curve). The red CO₂ concentration curve is global, scaled assuming that other countries use an energy mix identical to that of the USA; it is therefore VERY CRUDE ;) The red CO₂ curve assumes an enhanced natural/human CO₂ drawdown/sequestration of 3 Gigatonnes of carbon per 100 ppm increase in gas concentration, as justified here at (TheOilDrum.com).

These numbers are reported in comprehensible units where possible. For example, solar energy generation is reported in millions of 1 kWe (rooftop) installations, both solar thermal and PV. A PV installation today produces at most 20% of its rated value, so this represents at least 33 150W panels in the real world (and a $20 billion investment per million rooftops for PV, 1/10 this for thermal). Similarly for wind, the experience of e.g. Denmark, is that wind facilities have so far delivered only 17% of their rated capacity; I boost this to 25% for the simulations, assuming that we site this hardware optimally. You should keep the growth rate for biofuels small because their low ERoEI will hopefully discourage expanded use. Geothermal and hydro aren't adjustable because they can't grow significantly.

Two black curves on the top plot show relative per capita energy consumption. The lower one assumes that the present level of illegal+legal immigration continues (HI), the higher one that immigration to the USA ends by 2012 (LO). The pie charts at bottom right show the fuel mix and per capita (LO) energy available in 2003 vs. 2040. Vehicular mobility consumes much of the former, and perhaps of the latter.

Finally, at bottom left the implications on vehicle mileage are reported, with power hungry military+airlines+trucks separated from cars+vans+SUV's. The default values assume that the LO population maintains its 2001-level of personal mobility (same 2001 miles per capita driven annually thereafter). You can adjust this from zero growth/decline with the Tripmiles rate. Increased biofuel production does not change these curves; biofuels consume at least as much fuel as they produce.

Running the simulator

For each of the following, update the average rate of change over
each decade by clicking in the appropriate row in the white area
and then backspacing/overtyping the revised number. (An abbreviation
for constant growth is to enter the number of decades followed by *
then the constant growth rate e.g. 3*2.5 == 2.5,2.5,2.5 ) Then press PLOT
If the image is fuzzy, your browser has shrunk it. Magnify to full scale.
Use your browser Back button to return here for further experiments.

Fuel Source: 2004-10,11-20,21-30,31-40
"Coal ",0.8,3*0.85, "US NG ",0,-1,-2,-2, "Import NG ",8,5,1,-0.5, "US Oil ",0,-1,-3,-4, "Import Oil",0,3*-2, "Nuclear ",0,1,1.4,1.6, "Solar ",10,3*7, "Wind ",16,13,11,10, "Biofuels ",4*1.5, "Truck Mileage gain ",4*2, "Tripmiles ",4*0, "Solar conversion ",15,20,25,30, "Fission conversion ",4*35, "Extra Mb daily ",0,1,1,1

In the bottom rows at left you can tweak the conversion efficiencies of various evolving technologies. The "Extra MB daily" field by default explores the implications of the Hirsch et al maximum effort to mitigate shortage of liquid fuels developed under a DOE contract. In brief, they calculate that (5,10,15) years after GO worldwide an additional (2.5,13,22) million barrels daily of crude could come from gas-to-liquids, coal liquefaction, and heavy oil (we consider improved mpg separately). Cutting these to 24% to apply just to the USA gives the defaults shown, assuming the GO decision for a crash program occurs by 2010. You can also use this field to add extra millions of barrels a day of Iraqi petroleum for exclusive use by the USA occupiers, or add/subtract this quantity from the market depending on the whims of OPEC and the White House. (You cannot use this to add USA shale because it is already included in the Hirsch mitigation.)

Please bear in mind that the default values for the plots are based on optimistic assessments of available supplies because they assume that the USA will be able to retain its current global fraction of oil+natural gas even though those resources that remain to consume are increasingly in foreign lands and are coveted by others. It also assumes rational response to declining supplies of oil and natural gas! It is possible (likely?) based on past practice that fuels will be used inefficiently, for example burning precious primary liquid fuels to make biofuels or hydrogen to consume in a hypothetical fleet of fuel cell vehicles.